fashionRIP is a multidiscipline, transmedia installation of chapters, an exploration of perceptions and beliefs. It’s a platform that explores ecosystems health, generative economics, social justice, cultural and creative diversity. Starting with recycouture garments, the story became the Project. It is now an evolving experiment, designed to explore meaningful relationship based constructs that put human potential and whole systems health over the abstract ideas of faux "the real world."

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Born of Stars

That
sparkly, twinkle sensation that emanates from the cells in your body are they not like stars? That aliveness is the vital energy that moves us and through us all.

I feel it best when i lie still after morning exercises stretches-yoga and pilates. Feeling one's own aliveness helps us connect to the whole flow of life itself. I believe it one door through which we can experience our relationship to the whole living planet, uni-verse and...?

Vital energy is in the very music of string theory, it shows up as the vibration
that hums through our bodies, our "personal ecosystems" and beyond, way, way beyond.

If you close your eyes; where do you end? You feel boundary sensations
only where you touch "other" or that which appears as matter not
you.” How cool is that? Thank you Steve Ross for pointing this out.

This was new to me, as i had been taught to view my body in machine
like terms. (or as a sexual “object”- that divisioning for hierarchical thinking-again)

All that huff and puff aerobic stuff, the weight lifting the exercise for muscle
tone, weight loss and or heart health, sexual desirability, the focus was all
about performance and measurable results. I wasn't taught to value
my "being" or celebrate my body as a glorious piece in the whole of "physical
matter."

Why so?

I have a cousin who is a math prof. He is in town to do tenure fulfillment
obligations. I asked him about this and he told me he was working on an app for
statistics. In this process he is figuring out a way to condense data to fit
the platform aka play with the numbers to oblige the new "tool!"

This is precious!

First we create the tool and then through market agenda, memes and other
influences, that "tool" takes over and becomes a
"ruler" of thought. Then we cater to the tool, we design for
it, we extoll its virtues and scoff at those without the newest
"tools."
This example of interactivity between what we create and conscious application
apparently slides under the radar in the guise of "progress” aka not to be
questioned!

However, what can we learn from this rather silly and insatiable quest?

One answer:
We are living in a world that we are designing. So now let us design the
world we really want to live in.

Even those who think they benefit from the design of the old story are hurting. They too are
trapped and arrested by the concepts that are destroying the
diversity of choice probabilities.” Living in this story manifests as a shrinking down spiral.

Every loss in diversity equates to a loss in health. (We are ecosystems, we
co evolved with the whole of the planet’s ecosystems,
we are connected, therefore trashing the planet’s systems is suicidal behavior)
The next loop in the spiral down creates even more self-limiting beliefs as more
choices seem to dry up. The pattern is obvious and need not, should not be followed. This is not acceptable behavior!

It does, however, show that we have power and that our beliefs set that
power in motion. Ok then, now let us take this knowledge and act
responsibly like the maturing, conscious species we like to think we
are.

One way is to re imagine what we think to be of value. What is really
valuable?
What about exploring underappreciated resources and questioning the hand me
down concepts, we are encouraged to "own." and to propagate?
These kinds of questions can open us up to new choices.

New choices manifest
new actions and more new choices "appear." This is an expanding or upward
spiral, this is freedom.

It is time to recognize that we as the user of tools, should not be the pawn
of the toolmakers-no matter how high tech the bluff. We can overcome our walls
and boundaries, once we see through them.

We are capable. We are powerful. When we align our power, our vital energy
to whole of wellbeing, connect to love and drop the reins of fear..i believe we
will see the dawn of that new day.

After all- we are born of stars and are filled with the same amazing
energy as the stars.

The “Blue Stars” in fabric, photo picture above were inspired by the enigmatic relationship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. (Just Kids) What
if co creative tension supports a next
paradigm dynamic. One where chaos and confusion, a love/fear balance sparks imaginal cells in a space where true equals balance between love and fear?

Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

It All connects - it's all One

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.

About Me

Former owner of Zootsuit Custom Apparel, am now, creative director of fashionRIP an eco-politico multi-media, collaborative arts series - part of FashonRip Project –an experiment in interrelationships and alignments. Acting to design life to meet needs and desires in ways that won’t jeopardize true needs, makes sense. I have a BA from The Evergreen State College - Environmental Science & Communications as foci. This tops off 4 AAs (Marketing, Apparel, Web Design, Transfer) certificates in modeling & Communications in Business & Media. Borders between disciplines are subjective, permeable. Broad spectrum approaches open up concepts of individual potential, expanded possibilities and a living uni-verse. Co creative partnering beats war against otherness. Stepping into harmony with our whole, authentic, possible selves is healthy growth. This is the story I am sharing. Grounded, i am happy to present, lecture, teach, create events, design, display, install and re-imagine all manner of arts. I also eco consult, alter, repair and redesign fabulous unique garb, images et al. E mail-debbarnesusa@hotmail.com subject fashionRIP,-for current information